I'm trying to get a feel for what a good amount of working out is. Especially for those who do it daily, though I wouldn't mind hearing all sorts of schedules.
I'm currently doing 30 minutes most days. Occasionally less. I was doing an hour every day but I put my most intense workout on pause for the time being.
I'm wondering if this is a good amount. Is it too much? Too little? Just right? Does it matter what type of exercises or how often they change?
Please and thankful for any responses, be that what you personally do, what you've heard, etc.
As others have said: it depends on the intensity of the exercise and also on your goals. What you do with your non-"exercise" time also matters.
For general health, the WHO recommends a minimum of 150 minutes / week of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity or 75 minutes / week of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity or an equivalent combination, plus muscle-strengthening activities for all major muscle groups a minimum of 2 times / week. But you will see increased health benefits if you do more than this.
A massive longitudinal study completed in 2022 concluded that the maximum benefit from physical activity in terms of lowering all-cause mortality peaks at 600 minutes / week of moderate physical activity or 300 minutes / week of vigorous physical activity or an equivalent combination.
As for hitting your specific goals, how much time you need to train really depends a lot on how targeted your training is to what you want to achieve.
A mile is a 15 minute brisk walk. For an elite runner, it's less than a 5 minute run. (The men's world record is currently 3:43, the women's 4:07.) When I could run a mile in ~ 5:30, I was training ~ 7 hours a week. (This was targeted training with an elite team under the supervision of a very good coach.) If you don't care about the speed though, and you just want to be able to complete a mile without breaks using a running gait, you can easily get there training just 15 minutes / day. Simply do a mile every day, alternating running sections and walking sections, trying to maximize how much you run and minimize how much you walk until you get to running the entire distance. You will achieve your goal pretty quickly if you do this a minimum of 4 days / week. (And more quickly if you do it more often.)
For the pull-up you need to work on upper-body strength. The clutch flag is full body, but mostly a lot of obliques and hip abductors and adductors. (Side planks, side star planks, and side planks with the bottom leg lifted will help you there.) As with the running, doing the right training consistently is what you need to get there. Adding extra training time won't help if your training is inconsistent, or you're not training the right things.
As for what I'm currently doing: Right now my schedule is crap because of the heat. In cooler weather, Shelby and I walk 2+ hours a day. (2 hours if we're walking briskly. But usually we're out there for a lot longer because we stop to sniff things, talk to friends, photograph birds, etc.) My goal is to workout 7 hours per week on top of this, including half vigorous (running, HIIT) and half moderate (primarily yoga) activity. This is ~ equivalent to the maximum health benefit amount as per the study I referenced above. (But this is not what I'm doing this month!)
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Nashville, TN, USA
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My post might involve my work experience (not related to training at all, but I see correlations and similitudes).
